Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday called for a legal revision that would make politicians convicted of bribery ineligible for election subsidies, a proposal likely to be met with cross-party support.
Describing the revision as “logical,” DPP Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) said the move would close a loophole that has seen the government give subsidies worth hundreds of millions of New Taiwan dollars to politicians convicted in corruption cases.
“It will hopefully put a stop to the practice,” she said. “The government would essentially be supporting election bribery if the convicted don’t have to return their per-vote subsidies.”
Under current election laws, politicians are eligible to receive a per-vote subsidy of NT$30 when they garner enough votes to reach a certain threshold — normally one-third to half of the winning candidate’s votes.
The proposed revisions to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) would see the subsidies temporarily withheld to politicians accused of bribery. That money would be confiscated if the election is annulled.
Chiu, the convener of the Internal Administration Committee, said that the proposal would likely be introduced in her committee sometime next week — where it is expected to be unopposed by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers.
The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that almost NT$15 million (US$515,000) had been given in election subsidies to politicians that have seen their elections annulled in the past four years.
According to the report, Taiwan has seen a total of 51 such cases since 2007, with most occurring in Pingtung and Changhua counties.
The KMT caucus was quoted by a Central News Agency report as saying that it “respected” the proposal.
Minister of the Interior -Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) also called the current system of subsidies “unacceptable.”
The government was alerted to the problem last month, Jiang said, and a task force has already begun to study how to revise the loophole. Under current law, there is no method to retrieve the subsidies once a politician is convicted, he said.
“We are looking at information from foreign countries,” Jiang said. “We are looking at how other advanced countries deal with election bribery and annulment, and whether they can retrieve any election subsidies.”
Jiang said the ministry would ask representatives from both the DPP and KMT to sit down and discuss the proposal.
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